Mogul Terrain Makes it More Difficult To Control Speed

Beyond the danger of carving, the challenge of skiing moguls with more control becomes even more difficult because when you ski a mogul run you encounter a second problem.

The mogul skiing control problem gets worse because mogul terrain, itself, naturally creates high edge angles between your skis and the snow – even if you are not trying to carve. And, these high edge angles produced by the 3-dimensional mogul terrain will typically cause your skis to carve. And, carving produce speed – which is your enemy in the bumps – unless you are young and possess lightening-fast reflexes.

The following photos illustrate this point.

Carving Is Your Speed Control Enemy In Moguls

In Photo 1 (below) notice how a skier merely standing vertically with their skis on the face of a mogul – making no attempt to create an edge angle on the snow – just naturally creates high edge angles on the front face of a mogul without even trying.

In Photo 2 (below) you get a better appreciation for the size of the edge angles created in Photo 1. In this second photo we merely rotated Photo 1 counterclockwise so that the front face of the mogul is horizontal. Now, notice the the steep angle of the skis on the snow. It looks very similar to what angles you might expect to see from a ski racer.

Why It Is Important To Intentionally Reduce The Edge Angle Between Your Skis And The Snow When Skiing Moguls

I think you get the picture. If you don’t consciously and intentionally reduce your edge angles when skiing moguls then you run the risk of increasing your speed in the bumps – which is like stepping on the accelerator pedal while driving on a bumpy road.

This combination of speed from our learned behavior of carving our turns on groomed runs, coupled with the additional edge angles created by mogul terrain itself, will increase the likelihood that you will end up skiing faster than you would like, both increasing your anxiety and challenging your reflex speed.

The way to avoid this problem, and to better control your speed when skiing moguls, is to intentionally use a lower edge angle on your skis so that you can drift your turns rather than carve your turns.